Kim Howard  00:00

Kim, welcome to the Let’s Talk EMDR Podcast brought to you by the EMDR International Association, or EMDRIA. I am your host. Kim Howard. Let’s get started. Today, we are speaking with EMDRIA certified therapist trainer and approved consultant, Holly Forman-Patel, to discuss EMDR therapy for anger management. Thank you, Holly, for being here today. We are so happy that you said yes,

 

Holly Forman-Patel  00:25

Thanks, Kim. I’m excited to be here.

 

Kim Howard  00:28

Holly, tell us about your path to becoming an EMDR therapist.

 

Holly Forman-Patel  00:32

Yeah, so you know, it actually started back in my undergraduate. And so in my undergraduate, I was in a psychology class, and they were showing us all these videos of different therapists. So back, you know, all the greats, and they showed this video of this woman working with someone who had just experienced a trauma, and she was waving her finger in front of her eyes. And I remember being like, what is that? That is so weird. And the video was like, 10 to 15 minutes. But at the end of it, the woman was noticeably less upset. And I remember thinking this was wild, so I filed in the back of my head, because I love weird things. And you know, it was EMDR therapy, right? It was Francine Shapiro doing this. So it was always in the back of my mind. And then when I right, when I was getting licensed, my I started working with this little kiddo, and he was in, you know, he had a trauma, and it was around trains, and he had this big response around it. And my supervisor at the time was like, Oh, I wish you knew EMDR, and I’m like, well, that’s not helpful, because I don’t. And so I worked with him for, you know, two years doing non directive play therapy. And when I first mentioned train to him, when we very first started, he was about five. At that time, he had really intense psychomotor agitation. He just couldn’t tolerate it. And so then I’m doing non directive play therapy, which is one of my favorite modalities, next to EMDR therapy. And by the time I was taking the training, he could run up and touch a train and run away. And I was like, Huh? I mean, progress, but, like, two years. And so I in my mind’s eye. When I was able to take this training, had this kiddo in my mind, and so I’d prepped the family, what have you. And I was one of those people who just jumped right into it. And so I started EMDR therapy with him the week after I took the first weekend of the basic training, and within three sessions, he was writing the train again. Wow. I mean, yeah, so I always say, you know, and I find that people who have an experience like I did, where it works really, really well with the first couple of clients. You use it with that, you just like, run full forward with it. And so that was my experience, and I’ve never looked back. And so that’s how I came to EMDR therapy.

 

Kim Howard  02:49

Well, I appreciate that origin story, and I am glad that that he healed. I guess, presume now he might be a young man or a late teenager.

 

Holly Forman-Patel  02:57

He’s a big kid now an adult, yeah.

 

Kim Howard  02:58

So I presume that he’s healed from that, and that’s wonderful news, especially if you live in an area where there happened to be a lot of train traffic. I mean, if you lived in a city situation or whatever, that would be pretty triggering if you had a fear of of them. So I’m glad that you were able to work that that out. Yes, that’s great.

 

Holly Forman-Patel  02:59

Yeah.

 

Kim Howard  03:12

And you’ve probably already alluded to this, but I’m gonna ask the question anyway. what’s your favorite part of working with EMDR therapy?

 

Holly Forman-Patel  03:22

Well, I’m a true EMDR nerd. It’s literally one of my favorite things to talk about my husband. My husband often laughs at me because I’m constantly telling anyone new I meet about EMDR therapy. So if I go and get a blood draw, I’m telling the phlebotomist. And so when I come home from any new thing, he always like, looks at me, and he goes, hmm, did you tell anyone about EMDR, today, my answer is always like, Of course I did. Like, who do you not know who I am? But outside of that, outside of just, you know, my love for talking about it, I really love that moment when the person you’re working with realizes that this memory that held such a charge, just such an impact in their life doesn’t hold that anymore. And I hear so many times from clients, oh yeah, I tried to bring up this memory. I mean, I heard this this week. Oh, I tried to bring up this memory, and I wanted to be really upset about it, but it, it’s, it’s not there anymore. And that piece is just, it’s magical when it happens, because EMDR therapy really is a transformative therapy, and I have people who aren’t my clients, right, because I’m talking about it all the time, who say things to me. And so an example, a couple months ago, I was on an airplane, and I was working on an advanced EMDR training a PowerPoint, and it’s, you know, a three hour flight, and halfway through, the person next to me, taps my shoulder, and I have my earphones in, and I’m kind of like, ooh, who’s trying to talk with me? You know, I’m clearly busy. And so, you know, I take my ear, my AirPod or my earbud out, and she goes, Oh, do you do that therapy? EMDR, and I’m like, Oh, yeah. And she looks at me, and she goes, thank you so much. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for that therapy.

 

Kim Howard  04:59

Wow.

 

Holly Forman-Patel  04:59

Yeah, and this isn’t a one time thing. Kim, I hear this all the time, like, it’s really, like, I get a little, you know, emotional even about it, because it’s truly beautiful. And so I think that transformative nature of EMDR therapy is my favorite piece about it.

 

Kim Howard  05:13

Yeah, it’s pretty it’s a pretty profound testimonial when somebody tells you that EMDR either changed and or saved their life. I mean, that’s that’s incredible to the power of of how it can heal trauma. So I’m so appreciative of all the work that you and all of our members and other therapist out there in the world do to you guys are literally healing human beings. I mean, it’s amazing. So thank you all.

 

Holly Forman-Patel  05:37

Yeah, and really, you know, just that reminder, it’s the client’s brain and body that’s healing itself. And that’s the cool thing about EMDR therapy. As the therapist, we’re helping facilitate a process that’s innately in our brain and body. And so that’s also the cool piece, is we’re facilitating it, but it’s the client that’s doing the healing. True, true.

 

Kim Howard  05:57

So let’s talk about anger management. So Holly, can you tell us how we can recognize more that we have anger issues that need to be addressed?

 

Holly Forman-Patel  06:05

Yeah, so anger is interesting, because how we see it come out often is in our relationships. That’s where I see it’s the most common, that it’s starting to negatively impact our relationships, and people will find themselves responding to their loved ones in ways that maybe they’re not proud of, right? It elicits, actually, some shame and guilt as well. So maybe we’re not responding to our kiddo as nice as we would like to, or our partner or even our friends. So if people are starting to notice that they’re getting feedback that maybe they’re overly sensitive or a little prickly or it’s hard to talk to you about things that could indicate that maybe there’s some anger that’s happening.

 

Kim Howard  06:47

Good. Thank you. What are the specific complexities or challenges when offering EMDR therapy for anger management?

 

Holly Forman-Patel  06:54

One of the biggest complexities around this is that anger is often a protective emotion, almost like a mask, and it’s guarding more vulnerable material. And this is usually early attachment stuff, experiences of betrayal, experiences of feeling powerless or unsafe. And so the challenge is, if we treat anger as the sole problem itself, we’re going to miss a much deeper story that’s happening. The other piece about it is that anger makes us feel powerful. It makes us feel like we’re in control. So there is a mental shift that often needs to happen around anger, like almost this for some people can feel like losing control by not being angry anymore, and so by teaching people that actually the control that comes with anger isn’t true, control can be really helpful.

 

Kim Howard  07:42

Yeah, that’s good explanation. Thank you, Holly. What successes have you seen using EMDR therapy for people with anger management?

 

Holly Forman-Patel  07:49

So there’s two big things that I’ve seen, and this circles back to an answer I said, of how it’s a problem in people’s lives, is that you’ve seen improvement in people’s relationship with their loved ones. So going back to that parent piece, you might very well find a parent who then starts responding with their kid in a more compassionate way. Those little things that agitated you are no longer there anymore. Your interactions with your spouse will be shifted. I find people say they’re actually finding more intimacy in their romantic relationships when they shift their anger. Another example is you might find a boss who is having challenging interactions with their employees start to be more respected at work. So there so those are some of the bigger like interpersonal changes. The second thing is that I see a shift with how the person views themselves. Anger comes with, actually, a good amount of shame, and that’s not always talked about. And so when we start shifting the way we’re engaging in the world, when we start shifting our relationship with anger, it’s actually going to start shifting how we see ourselves, and we’re going to have an increase in confidence and self esteem and overall, just self worth.

 

Kim Howard  09:00

Yep. Thank you. Holly, are there any myths that you would like to bust about working with EMDR therapy?

 

Holly Forman-Patel  09:06

How long do we have, Kim?

 

Kim Howard  09:09

We have as long as you want. But if you want to give you a top three or five, we’ll go from there.

 

Holly Forman-Patel  09:15

So EMDR works fantastic for trauma. We know this right? However, many of the experiences that shape our lives and that are very impactful, including, you know, how we see ourselves in the world, we might not consider these past experiences of trauma. And so EMDR therapy is a therapy that isn’t just for trauma, it’s for anything that’s occurring in the now, right in the present, such as negative reactions with anger. And what we do is we trace that back to the past, and we see where did that pattern begin, and then we reprocess those memories. And so it doesn’t just have to be what we might consider trauma memories. It’s any experiences that are negatively impacting us right now. And only I won’t give you 10 things, I’ll give you just one more thing, the other. Thing is that people have this idea that it’s too rigid of a therapy and it’s not client centered. And this one often makes me need to use some of the anger coping skills that I teach my clients, because just like with any therapy, yes, we have tenants of EMDR therapy, and we have structure to it, right? We have what we call the standard protocol, which people need to follow, because it is gold. But this just guides our work, and it’s important because this is what the research is around often, right? Is that standard protocol, and this shows that EMDR therapy is an effective therapy, but in the end, it’s a guide, and within this lens, like this umbrella of the standard protocol, EMDR therapy, is actually quite client centered. It’s a completely collaborative process with our clients, like, what do they want to work on? And any modifications that we’re making to it should truly only be based on the client’s unique and individual needs. So to say it’s too rigid, or isn’t client centered, is really just wild to me.

 

Kim Howard  10:59

Yeah, and we’ve mentioned this before in the podcast, but it’s been a while, so I’ll reiterate is that you guys really when somebody goes to a therapist, it’s kind of like going to a doctor and they give you some kind of medication. You don’t really know if you’re going to have a reaction to the medication until you’ve been prescribed the medication. Yeah, therapy. You don’t really know if the therapy modality is going to work for you until the therapist tries it on you, and then if it doesn’t work on you, well, the therapist then has to basically do some kind of customized plan around what is going to work with each client. And so you guys, everybody who’s walking in the door, you could have eight patients a day. You’ve got eight different approaches. You know, it’s not so lucky. Yeah, I may use EMDR with all eight of them, or only four of them. But even within those confines, it’s still customized based on that client experience. And so that’s good reminder for people out there and kind of understand that approach. So thank you. Yes, absolutely. What advice do you have for EMDR therapists listening on how they can help these clients?

 

Holly Forman-Patel  11:00

Yeah, so I have two tips. So one is kind of a larger picture one, and one’s a specific technique. And so the biggest thing when someone’s coming in for anger management is to for the therapist to stay really curious around what that anger is protecting, and not to rush in just to get rid of it. EMDR, therapist, and you know, any, any tips I give, I can give, because I’ve made all the mistakes. I always tell my consultees and my trainees like you are not going to surprise me, because how we grow and become good at something is by learning and making mistakes. And so EMDR, therapists often rush too quickly in to alleviate a symptom without understanding the purpose of it. Often there’s a piece around needing, you know, we need to validate the function of the symptom, because that actually helped our clients be safe throughout their lifetime. But it’s our goal, our goal, then to access what’s underneath that. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And so that’s kind of like the overall arching piece, but there’s a really specific technique that I really love with working with anger. And I wish I came up with this myself, but I learned this from Philip Manfield many years ago in a consultation group. And so it’s a type of interweave that you can use during Phase four desensitization, when anger is not shifting. And so what you do is you either get one of those physical therapy bands that you use for physical therapy exercises, or if you don’t have one, you take a large towel and wrap it up so it’s kind of nice and long. And so you have the client notice where the anger is at in their body. And then they put their feet on the middle of either the exercise band or the towel, and they push down as hard as they can with their feet. And then they grab each end with each corresponding hand, and they pull as hard as they can. So they’re pushing down with their feet, pulling up with their arms as hard as they can, as they focus on the anger. And then you’re applying a set of bilateral eye movements. And oftentimes this shifts anger really quickly. So this one of my favorite techniques to use when it’s not moving, but it does shift it quickly, so that anger can shift intense, sadness, shame, what have you, but it’s a really fantastic technique to use with anger.

 

Kim Howard  14:07

Thank you, Holly. And for anybody who’s listening who’s not a therapist, can you quickly explain what an interweave is?

 

Holly Forman-Patel  14:14

Oh, yeah. So sometimes during Phase four desensitization, which is that phase where we’re actually working on the memory where we’re processing it, sometimes things just aren’t moving naturally. The analogy we like to use is the train is going down the track during this and so during reprocessing, a whole bunch of things are coming up. You might have different thoughts, insights, body sensations, memories come up. But sometimes that train stops and it gets stuck, and the therapist does like says a thing that helps that train get unstuck. And so for this example, the thing is, using this pull push exercise to help kind of get that anger to move a little bit. And you know, something to know is, anytime a therapist uses an interweave, it doesn’t mean the client. Did anything wrong, the all the client has to do is notice what’s happening in their brain and body as they either, you know, watch the eye movements or tapping whatever type of bilateral is happening. But yeah, that’s what I mean.  Thank you. What would you like people outside of the EMDR community to know about EMDR therapy and anger management? Anger just like so many different things that our clients are experiencing, is just an adaptation to the different things that have happened to them in their lifetime. It’s a skill that they learned to help them, and it was really helpful at some point in their life, but now it’s getting in the way of them living a healthy life. So EMDR, therapy doesn’t just help clients manage their anger. What it does is it actually heals the root causes of it, and is really important, specifically with anger, it’s not about making people pass it. It’s about helping them to access healthy assertiveness and self protection without being hijacked by their old wounds.

 

Kim Howard  15:59

A great explanation. Thank you, Holly. How do you practice cultural humility as an EMDR therapist?

 

Holly Forman-Patel  16:06

As we know, cultural humility is super foundational, and really it’s about acknowledging that I’m never going to be the expert on someone else’s lived experience. I aim to deeply listen to check my own assumptions. I want to remain open to feedback, but I want to always consider the social, cultural and systematic context that shapes a person’s experience, and that might be very different than my own. So I need to be really aware of that. And this is a lifelong process, right? I know that I’m not going to get it right all the time, and it’s something that I have to continue to work on. And it’s not just, you know, a box that I checked or this one training that I took, right?

 

Kim Howard  16:44

Exactly. Holly, do you have a favorite free EMDR related resource you would suggest, either for the public or other EMDR therapists?

 

Holly Forman-Patel  16:53

So I hope it’s okay that I mentioned my own and so I started a YouTube channel, I think, last year, and I just release a video every quarter or so, and it has different resources. And I started that because what I was finding is my consultees were when they were resourcing a client, which is helping them ground and learn skills to use in case big things happen in between sessions, they were doing the safe, calm place exercise, but they weren’t really doing other resourcing exercises, and they were feeling a little stuck with it. And so I started taping different resources for my consultee is. And so there are some different videos up there that people have found pretty helpful.

 

Kim Howard  17:35

Okay, we’d be glad to put a hyperlink in the description of the podcast so people can look at that. Thank you, Holly. If you weren’t an EMDR therapist, what would you be?

 

Holly Forman-Patel  17:45

That’s a great question. I would be either an astronomer or a chef. And so yeah, I know it’s you all can’t see, but Kim made a face there. That’s very surprising. I understand. So I actually originally went to college for astronomy, and I was an astronomy major for two years. And my undergraduate, I really loved space and stars and all that stuff, but halfway through, I realized that me and physics were not really friends, and so I switched to psychology. And then kind of a similar thing happened when I was in graduate school. Halfway through, I was like, Oh, I think I should have gone to culinary school instead, so I would be one of those two professions. But lucky for the world, neither of those things happened.

 

Kim Howard  18:32

Well, I was talking to somebody the other day, and I changed my major three times, I think, first year in college. So it does happen. Sometimes it just takes longer to find yourself, you know?

 

Holly Forman-Patel  18:42

Yes.

 

Kim Howard  18:43

Is there anything else you want to add?

 

Holly Forman-Patel  18:46

Yeah, so the last thing I want to add is that I’ve noticed that sometimes therapists get really afraid of a client’s anger, and especially when it comes up during reprocessing. And the trick is, so I’ve seen people actually ground their clients if big anger comes up, and what can happen is someone might not have been allowed to actually feel angry about a memory or towards the person that hurt them, if that’s the case with the memory that we’re working on. And so what can happen is, once we start we’re processing that memory, and things start shifting. Really intense anger can come up, and clients might say statements against, you know, a perpetrator that scare the therapist. The therapists, it would be really helpful if they remember that this is just part of that memory network, and the clients just feeling stuff that weren’t safe to feel at the time of the experience that they had. And so if we and a client might not have been allowed to be angry as a kid too, that’s the other piece, right? So this wasn’t allowed. And so if, as the therapist, we quickly shift over and try to ground a client or move them away from it, we. Might begin, fortunately, recapitulating old dynamics and recreating old relationships with clients and so just something to really be mindful of.

 

Kim Howard  20:09

Thank you, Holly. That’s a great way to end the podcast. This has been the Let’s Talk EMDR podcast with our guest, Holly Forman-Patel. Visit www.EMDRIA.org for more information about EMDR therapy, or to use our Find an EMDR Therapist Directory with more than 17,000 therapists available. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to this free podcast wherever you listen. Thanks for being here today.